Can I only get a patent for breakthrough inventions?

In my work as a patent attorney, I notice that there is a lot of confusion among inventors about the requirements for a patent. Many inventors seem to be under the impression that patents are only granted for “breakthrough inventions”, such as the mRNA technology underlying – among others - the Covid vaccines, or novel battery technologies.

These inventors typically dismiss their invention as being “obvious” and disclose it to the public without applying for a patent, thereby leaving a large potential unused.
 
Patents can be obtained for any invention that is novel, inventive and has industrial application. Although the criterium of inventive step is not black and white, it is definitely not the case that only breakthrough solutions are worthy of patenting.
 
To the contrary, many patentable inventions lie in small improvements of known products or methods. A famous example – at least in the Netherlands – is the biscuit (“beschuit”) having a notch allowing consumers to easily remove it from a tin without breaking.
 
In hindsight, many people believed that the notch was “obvious” and that “anyone could have thought of that”. Perhaps other people could have thought of the solution as well, but that does not mean the invention lacks inventive step. In patenting, the relevant question is, essentially, if others would have arrived at the solution without using creativity. In the present case, it appeared that while the problem of breaking biscuits was already known for a long time, no satisfactory solution had been found at the time.
 
Accordingly, a patent was not only granted, but also upheld in court, indicating that also small improvements can very well be patentable!

Contact Blijke Kroezen through telephone number +31 70 416 68 91 or emailaddress b.kroezen@vo.eu. She will deal with your question in a next edition of IP Leads!